Lachain bui (Yellow ducks)

Plastic yellow ducks have colonised the River Liffey and people have been spotted risking life and limb to retrive a few of them. Well I did see one lad jumb into to river to colllect a few of the ducks, and others have been climbing down the ladders attached to the side of the river.

I had a look round Trinity College today and saw the Books of Kells – most impressive – there were also a number of other beautiful illuminated manuscripts on display, including the Book of Darrow and an Armenian bible. Then I had a stroll through the Long Room, a library that houses some the oldest and most valuable books in the college. One interesting fact about the Long Room, which looks like something out of Harry Potter, is that the books are arranged according to size, with the largest books on the bottom shelves, and smaller books on the upper shelves. So to find a book, you have to know how big it is.

In the afternoon, I had a look round the Charles Beatty library, an amazing collection of books, manuscripts, paintings, prints, and many other things. I would thoroughly recommend it to any linguaphiles, graphophiles and indeed bibliophiles. There were even some explanations of the exhibits in Irish.

6 Responses to Lachain bui (Yellow ducks)

I wonder what’s the connction between Armenia and Ireland. I read the Táin Bó Cualgne before and there is a mention of Armenia in some of the poems that I think Setanta (Cuchulainn) said …lamenting his friend Fergus as far as I remember If I wasn’t wrong. Does anyone know?

TJ – I don’t know if there are any connections between Armenia and Ireland, but the exhibition you go through before getting to the Book of Kells shows examples of illuminated manuscripts from around the world, including Armenia.

That’s very interesting that you got to see the Book of Kells. Just out of curiosity, were you able to read any of it from your knowledge of Latin? I just started learning Latin this year, and I’m enjoying it, especially as I already have some knowledge of Greek and Spanish.

Benjamin – I was able to make out some of the text in the Book of Kells, but it’s difficult as my knowledge of Latin is limited, and the script is quite difficult to read. They abbreviated or missed out quite a lot of the words to fit them into the available space. You only get to see a few of pages, unfortunately – they change the display every so often, so I’d probably see something different if I went back again.

TJ – the Book of Invasions (Lebor Gabála Érenn) is not the same thing as the Book of Kells – the former is an account of Ireland’s history, while the latter is the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) from the Bible.